NTTYY Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (PK)

TOKYO—A week after shares of its banking and insurance units drew strong appetite from individual investors, the parent group Japan Post Holdings Co. priced its own initial public offering at the top of the proposed range Monday amid high expectations for Japan's biggest share offering in nearly two decades.

After taking orders, Japan Post Holdings priced its IPO at ¥ 1,400 ($11.56) a share. State-owned Japan Post said demand exceeded the number of shares offered. The government will offer about 11% of its shares outstanding to raise ¥ 693 billion.

Japan Post and its banking and insurance units will list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Nov. 4, separately but simultaneously.

Japan Post, which runs 24,000 post offices nationwide as well as one of the world's biggest banks, Japan Post Bank, and Japan's largest insurer, Japan Post Insurance, will likely be the government's last major privatization.

Japan has privatized several former state-owned monopolies in recent decades, including a railway, a telephone company and a cigarette maker.

Through the IPOs, the government expects to raise over ¥ 1.4 trillion, making it the biggest share offering in Japan since telecommunications provider NTT DoCoMo Inc. went public in 1998, raising ¥ 2.1 trillion.

The IPOs would also amount to the largest sale of a government-owned company since Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. raised about ¥ 2.3 trillion in 1987.

Japan Post Bank and Japan Post Insurance will each offer 11% of their shares outstanding, raising about ¥ 598 billion and ¥ 145 billion, respectively. The two are Japan's biggest bank and biggest insurance company by total deposits and number of policies in force, respectively.

With further share sales of all three companies to come in the years ahead, successful offerings next month are considered critical for the government, which has sought a Japan Post listing for nearly a decade.

The listing took on extra importance after the government decided to use ¥ 4 trillion ($33.5 billion) from the November listings and future share sales to help pay for reconstruction of areas hit by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Some investors, however, have raised questions about Japan Post Holdings' future business, as the profits came overwhelmingly from the banking and insurance units, which will go public at the same time.

Squeezed by tough competition and slow growth in the domestic market, the postal services unit, Japan Post Co., has struggled to generate profits.

In a bid to reassure prospective investors on its business strategy, Japan Post bought Australia's leading logistics company, Toll Holdings, in May for about $6 billion.

Write to Atsuko Fukase at atsuko.fukase@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 26, 2015 04:35 ET (08:35 GMT)

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